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The first in a new series of classic detective stories from the vaults of HarperCollins involves a blind man who stumbles across a murder. As he has not seen anything, the assassins let him go, but he finds it is impossible to walk away from murder.“The Detective Story Club”, launched by Collins in 1929, was a clearing house for the best and most ingenious crime stories of the age, chosen by a select committee of experts. Now, almost 90 years later, these books are the classics of the Golden Age, republished at last with the same popular cover designs that appealed to their original readers.“By the purest of accidents the man who is blind accidentally comes on the scene of a murder. He cannot see what is happening but he can hear. He is seen by the assassins who, on discovering him to be blind, allow him to go without harming him. Soon afterwards he recovers his sight and later falls in love with a mysterious woman who is in some way involved in the crime…. The mystery deepens and only after a series of memorable thrills is the tangled skein unravelled.”Called Back by Hugh Conway, a pseudonym for Frederick John Fargus, was first published in 1883. It was a huge success, selling 350,000 copies in its first year, leading to a highly acclaimed stage play the following year. This new edition is introduced by novelist and crime writing expert, Martin Edwards, author of The Golden Age of Murder.
Emily Dickinson was moved by this novel. It was so popular on its day (1883), that its fame rivaled the sensational best sellers of Wilkie Collins. Today it might be forgotten without this beautifully produced reprint from Collins Crime Club. I loved the book, in spite of (or because of) its excessive melodrama and extreme romanticism.The hero, Gilbert Vaughan, is young, rich, good-hearted, and healthy except for vision problems. He loses his sight and regains it in three emotion-charged chapters. But during his early misery and blindness, he stumbles into a crime scene. Only his blindness saves him from being murdered too.Coincidence drives the sensational plot. Gilbert's connection with the brutal murder that he could hear but not see is destined to continue. He encounters the young singer who was also present and falls hopelessly in love with her. His intense love for this mysterious beauty impels him to travel far and wide to find out the truth about the murder.The Victorian view of illness, love affairs, exotic travel, and political fanaticism fascinates me. These plot elements are particularly intense in Called Back. If you have a weakness for Victorian sensation novels, as I do, you won't want you miss this one.The short but informative introduction gives insight into the author's life and work. Hugh Conway (his pen name) died young, at age thirty-seven. Had he lived, he might have achieved lasting fame. I look forward to the coming reprint, also from Collins Crime Club, of Hugh Conway's Dark Days -- originally published a year after Called Back.
